A/N: ~Posiden666: So I know this is probably late. And I'm sorry in advance. It's currently the seventeenth of November. I'll be co-writing a webcomic soon, so updates will be slower. I promise I will not abandon this FanFic. Have no fear.

Reviews:

Redfoo. skyblue.165: Yes, this fanfiction is all about character development, plot twists, and adorable little things. My favorite is still chapter nine.

~Patient 0 Zero: Mmmhhmmm. The plot begins to arch… IKR! ZEPPELINS! No further responses.

Ethan. lukkar: Same review… wow.

(guest)SexySinon: I know, I'm sorry. It totally is. Sinoto forever!

Alternet RedSkys: I try to stay positive, theres too many tragedies in this world. You don't know I'm a good person. I don't know.

(guest)Somecrazygirl: I'm sorry for the wait, on the bright side, you didn't have to wait a month for this one.

Stormagedon69: Here have some more.

Siris the Guardian of Aura: Thanks. SINOTO FOREVER!

Siris the Guardian of Aura: Do you? Am I? Well… I do like roller coasters, and I do like plot twists, and winter is coming. Spoiler alert: Dragons

~Sentiel07: You're wrong, it was a bad start. No.

AlexCaffri: Oh… it is isn't it. Her name as well? *Fixed* Good to hear it, thanks.

Carlos. hernandez. 56679015: Thanks, I will

UltiBG: Thanks. Yeah, I'm un-creative. Sorry, I always seem to cap out around 3k-3.5k.

Thanks for reviewing you guys, keep being cool cats.

To all who read the top-note, I'll see you at the bottom


The Archery Skill

Chapter 13: "The Cold"


Kirito sat, waiting. The tavern was empty, save a few NPC's that always inhabited places like this. A certain Rat had promised to meet him almost an hour ago. An entire hour that he could've been grinding mobs. He sighed and began to get up, only to stop as he heard a familiar voice call, "Kii-Bou!" Kirito quickly looked to the direction of the voice, only to be tackled by a hooded figure. "Awwe Kii-bou, you've gotta be faster than that."

"I wasn't planning on being attacked."

"You should always expect the unexpected, you never know when someone might try to get you."

"We're in a safe zone, I'm allowed to relax in those aren't I?" He replied, pushing the girl away from him, and getting up.

"Well…" she puffed her cheeks out, "You never know," she said, pulling her hood down as far as it reached.

"Now, business," Kirito started, trying to push the conversation to a more serious direction, "I need all the info you have on one-handed sword subskills, extra skills, and unique skills."

"Hmm, interesting request, Kii-bou, may I ask why."

"No you may not."

"Please," she begged.

"It's a secret."

"Awwe, now you really got me interested, I can keep a secret."

"Yeah," he scoffed, "And I'm actually the leader of laughing coffin."

"Really?" She asked, taking out a book and quill.

"Sarcasm," he sighed.

"Good."

"Now back to business."

"Right, the only known one-handed sword related skills are: [One-Handed Sword], [Rapier], [Curved One-Handed Sword]. other than that there's just the extra [Katana] skill, and the only known unique one-handed sword skill: [Divine Sword]."

"Are you sure thats all?"

"You doubt me? That's all the known skills."

"Can you tell me all the known unique skills?"

"Sure… Zoë's got [Divine Sword], Alex's got [Rift Blade], Sinonon's got [Archery]. Come to think of it, your guild has all the unique skill users… how odd," she remarked, glaring at him as if trying to read all his darkest secrets.

"Th-Thanks Argo…" he stammered.

"Anytime Kii-Bou." her expression changing to a much lighter one, "Do you need anything else… maybe something worth charging you for?"

"It's probably not worth charging for, but do you know any good blacksmiths?"


Before him was a rather quaint little building with a chimney taking up almost half it's space, and a sign out front that read 'Lizbeth's Smith Shop.' He was in the small village of Alagade on the 55'th floor, only one floor below the current front line. The rest of this floor was covered in snowy crystal mountains, and deadly winter creatures.

He pushed the door open, the abundant warmth inside was a refreshing change from the frigid air surrounding the building. The walls were covered with weapons that looked to have equivalent to much of the equipment on the front lines. The player behind the counter was a fairly average sized girl with short brown hair.

"Hello, I'm Lizbeth, of Lizbeth's Smith Shop, what are you looking for today," she asked turning around. "Hang on, I know you, you're The Black Swordsman, right?"

"Is that what they're calling me now?" He asked, "Please, it's just Kirito."

"Well, it's great to have you, what kind of equipment are you looking for, I've got lots of swords."

He walked over to the girl and unstrapped Elucidator from his back, laying it on the counter, "I think a custom order actually, I'd like a one-handed long sword, one that's of equal or better quality than this," he said, gesturing to his sword.

The blacksmith poked at his sword, staring in shock at the window before her, "This is Elucidator, one of the best monster-drop weapons available. Why do you need a similar sword, are you intending on breaking it?"

"Well it's kinda a secret…"

"Well as the one forging the sword, I kinda need to know," she retorted.

"Okay," he sighed, "But you can't tell ANYBODY!"

"I won't," she replied, honestly, "Customer-Vendor confidentiality and all."

"I have a unique skill."

"Considering half the elite of KoB do, it's not that surprising."

"It allows me to equip an additional sword… And actually use sword skills for both."

"Cool, but why the secrecy?"

"I don't like attention," he stated, lowering his head.

"If you don't like attention why do you dress like an anti-hero, and lead the best players in the game."

"Dunno."

"You're dumb," she observed.

"So that's it, the fourth unique skill in the game, and you just say cool?" he asked, a bit hurt.

"What, did you want me to gasp with surprise, and treat you like a deity?"

"Well… no, I just thought you'd have some kind of reaction. Most people I know would do just about anything to have a unique skill."

"I don't need to use unique sword skills to make swords for unique skill users, now do I?"

"So what can you make?" he asked, dragging the conversation from its tangent.

"Well," she said, pulling a elegant, light looking sword from the wall, "How about this, it's my masterpiece."

"Hmm," he said, taking the sword and swishing it through the air, "It's really light."

"Well yeah, it's made from a speed type metal."

"Light is bad, it feels weak. Also, if I were to dual wield these swords, I'd be quite off balance."

"Well…" she said, thinking, "There's a quest nearby that's supposed to have a god tier ingot as the quest reward, if I had that, I could probably make you the perfect sword."

"Alright I'll go do that, and bring you the ingot."

There's just one thing," she said, putting on a fur coat.

"Hmm. Whats that."

"No one's completed the quest yet, and it's supposed you need a master smith in your party."

"Is this confirmed?"

"No. But I'm coming, and you can't stop me."

"What if I said please?" he questioned.

She looked into the distance for a short time before replying, "You could give it a shot."

"Please?" He asked, unsure of the result

"No."

"Wow," He sighed, "Fine."

She giggled and grabbed his arm, "Lets go!"


"K-Kirito, I'm cold!"

"You live on this floor, didn't you know it'd be freezing?"

"Well…"

"And you're wearing a coat."

"Yeah..." she started, before a large mass of fabric was tossed over her head. "But don't... you'll… cold..."

"If you didn't want to be warm, you shouldn't have said you were cold, plus: if you're disciplined like me, you don't feel it."

"That or your [Survival] is through the roof..." she muttered, following him further into the blizzard.

The boy held up his hand, motioning for her to stop.

"What is it?"

"The dragon sleeps..."

She followed his gaze to what, at first glance, appeared to be a mound of ice; although on further inspection she could make out a head, horns, and a slow rhythmic breathing motion, none of which were characteristics usually exhibited by mounds of ice. Kirito, meanwhile, had pulled a second sword from his inventory, this one a deep cobalt color.

"I want you to stay here, okay?"

"Why? I'll have you know that I am a…" her voice trailed off. His gaze was commanding, but behind that she sensed something more… fear maybe, concern, she couldn't tell. "Okay."


The beast was down to half of its total health. A boy in a black cloak was steadily chipping away at it's health, taking surprisingly little damage in return. Nearby a brown haired girl watched the fight, her face wrought with anxiety. From her hiding place, she saw him leap onto the dragon's head, stabbing both of his swords into it's skull. I roared in fury, and shook it's head violently in an attempt to remove the annoyance logged in it's cranium. Kirito removed the swords, backflipping off the beasts head, just moments before he would've been impaled upon a nearby crystal formation. It roared again, it's health having dropped into the red-zone. The dragon spread it's wings, soaring into the air and creating a gale strong enough to knock the swordsman off balance.

The onlooker dashed from her cover, drawing the monster's attention, "He changes his attack pattern to include a wing attack! Look out!" She yelled, hoping to help the boy.

"NO! Don't come-"

The dragon let loose a blizzard's worth of icy wind directed squarely at the unprepared blacksmith. Unable to keep her footing she flew backwards, expecting to land against the soft snow, instead: nothing.

She looked up, clawing helplessly at the air. The light at the top growing: fainter, the opening: smaller. She closed her eyes, she would finally be free of this hellish world. She heard her name. So there was an afterlife after all, she chuckled at the thought, her life had all been trivial. Her name again, this time more earnestly. She tried to remember the sensation of dying: she could not. She felt the warm embrace of death, heard the screeching sound that she assumed was her brain being bombarded with microwaves. She felt the soft snowy… her eyes shot open, she was at the bottom of the pit, the warm smile of 'The Black Swordsman' seeming to melt the feeling of doom from it's vicious hold on her. His swords stuck into the glacial wall of the pit, and two long deep cuts ran up the wall about twenty feet. The boy's head eclipsed the opening of the pit, giving him an angelic corona that only made him more beautiful. She reached up to him and pulled her savior into a hug. "Thank you," she whispered.


"Kirito," Liz said flatly.

"Uh-huh?" The boy choked out, his mouth full of soup.

"I sincerely doubt I've ever eaten worse food than this," she said, setting the steaming bowl on the snow, causing it to sink beneath the ground.

"I wouldn't doubt it," he replied, "My cooking skill is so low I can barely make toast."

"WHAT!" she shrieked, "How did you even make this soup?"

"Luck," he shrugged, "But if you're not going to eat that…" he gestured to the bowl.

"Yes, you can have it."

"Sweet!" He exclaimed, inhaling the rest of his own, and digging the soup out from the snow. He slurped the whole bowl of 'soup' down in mere seconds. Setting the bowl down, he noticed a glimmer in the hole the hot bowl had made. "Hey, Liz-san, come check this out," he said, indicating the hole. digging up more snow around the glimmer, he revealed three crystal-like objects, two of them jagged an icy blue, and the other a perfect and menacingly sharp red diamond shape.

"What's that," the brunette asked, peering over his shoulder.

"Well," he said picking up one one of the blue ones for her to poke, "I'd assume it's what we came here for.

"Crystalline Ingot!" Exclaimed the girl, "But what's the crimson one."

Kirito poked the sharp object, and a window appeared [Coagulated Angel-Blood Ingot, for you: Kirito] was the name.

"It's an Angel Blood Ingot or something," he said, quickly closing the window. Why did it have his name in the item name, maybe it was just weird, and named itself after the person to first pick up the item, he thought, it really wasn't that far-fetched. He quickly removed his name from the object. Weird.

"Liz-san, take this," he said, throwing her the ingot, "I want my sword made from that."

"How about I make you one of each material, and take this ingot as payment?"

"All right." He said, though not needing another sword, "Now did you bring a sleeping bag?"


"Hey, Kirito?" The girl laying beside him asked.

"Yeah, Liz." He said, turning towards her, her face illuminated in the soft warm flickering glow of the lantern that stood between them

"Why did you save me?"

"I don't know," he sighed, and her heart dropped to her stomach, "I guess, I just couldn't live with myself, knowing I had a real opportunity to save someone, and chose to not take it. God only knows my hands are already stained with enough blood."

"What do you mean," the girl inquired, noticing the distant and sorrowful look on the boy's face.

"I," he took a deep breath, his gaze becoming even more distant, "I've killed..." he sighed.

"Kir-"

"And I've watched, as people I could have saved; innocent people, people who deserved to live more than I; had their lives ended before my very eyes..." he cried, his fists balled, and his eyes full of remorse.

"It-"

"And so I'm going to save everybody. No matter how hopeless the odds, if I have the opportunity, I would rather die in anyone's sted than stand idly by, and do nothing. That is why I saved you Lizbeth-san"

A long pause followed, the brunette looked over to see if Kirito had fallen asleep. He had not. "Hey, Kirito?" She asked tentatively.

"Huh?" Grunted sleepily.

"Hold my hand?" She asked, turning her head from him, but extending her hand.

Kirito started to move his hand, but a picture of Sinon flashed in his mind. He was sure she wouldn't mind. He reached out of his sleeping bag and took her hand in his, "Good night Liz-san"

"Good night."


We trudged through the snowy wasteland that was the 55th floor. Sinon had asked me to accompany her here to 'Save Kirito,' earlier this morning. She had come to the guild HQ at 4:00 A.M. in a panic, asking anyone around if they knew where Kirito had gone. I had volunteered to help search for him, and suggested we talk to that information broker he goes too all the time. The 'Rat' had informed us that she had told him about a blacksmith on the 55th floor, and he had left in quite a rush. After finding the shop empty for 'Questing Purposes', Sinon had insisted that we search the entire floor for him, since this floor was a hot spot for blacksmiths recently in search of some new material.

Sinon had stopped, she was peering over the edge of a large pit, in what appeared to be shock. I rushed over to the edge of the pit to see what she was gawking at. The sight was terrible. Below lay Kirito wrapped in a brown sleeping bag. Curled up against him, lay a girl, in Kirito's favorite, smoke-grey one, their hands entwined.

Sinon pulled her bow from her back and knocked an arrow, aiming into the pit. "Sinon! Stop!" I yelled, attempting to disarm her. After a brief struggle, she stopped fighting and fell to the ground, her face becoming 'damp' with tears. She pulled a blue crystal from her belt and muttered something inaudible, shattering into billions of pieces.

I sighed, pulling a rope from my inventory and securing it around a nearby crystal formation. Better get the whole story, I thought.


Kirito had reached the mouth of the pit. Looking around, he noticed Alex, slumped against a nearby crystal cluster. "Thanks for saving us, it was a huge help," he said, giving Liz a hand.

"Kirito…" Alex sighed.

"Yeah?"

"Sinon was the one who found you two here," said the rogue, motioning to the pit, "Doing 'that'" Alex continued motioning between the two players before him/her, "And then she started crying and teleported away," they said. For the first time, Alex lifted their head, eyes full of fire, "Now do you want to explain to me what 'that' was and why you felt you needed to do it when you have a GIRLFRIEND ALREADY! One, who I might add, is perfect with you! And also, is now in tears because you were literally sleeping with another girl!"

"Well..." Kirito, started, scratching the back of his head, "I just woke up and found her all cuddled up against me, we just held hands last night, and I thought it was just friendly..."

The brunette's face had fallen, he had a girlfriend. Of course he did, he was 'The Black Swordsman,' possibly the most famous boy in all of Aincrad, she thought. But he had saved her life, so she owed him, everything. She wanted him… but she also wanted him to be happy. "K-kirito?" she asked.

"Yeah," he responded lifelessly.

"Do you love her?"

The boy looked at her shocked, but then his face fell into a distant smile. A warm and beautiful smile, "Yeah…" he said, as if not quite sure of himself. The girl's heart pounded painfully in her chest. He looked up, staring straight at nothing, and replied resolutely,"Yes I do."

Her heart stopped, and a pained smile crept onto her face, a single tear, rolling down her face. She stood up, facing away from them. "Then go tell her that, and be happy together," she said before running away from them, with a heavy heart, yet a clear conscience.


A/N: I hate to end it there, but it's where the end is. It'll make sense next chapter.

Please feel free to criticize me and write a review. Actually, it's encouraged! Hey, and if you really like this fic why not visit your favorite psychiatrist, because you need to; this is a bad fanfic, please stop lying to yourself.

Don't worry everyone, the butterfly point (Chaos Theory) will be revealed soon (6 Chapters)

I'd like to thank my beta tester ~Furrballnerd for all the beta input. And ~Mauriot for her proofing. Thanks, y'all are awesome.

Anyways, R&R&R&R&R&R&R&R&R&R&R, and all that jazz…

Peace off ^_^

Next up: "The Girl of Midnight Stars"